The rock and roll work of art is what you hear when you listen to the recording. It is impossible in principle to exhibit the rock and roll work of art on the printed page. So rock and roll as a literary form is oral literature–something literary criticism has never had to come to terms with.
Literary genius is single. Anything theatrical is sociable. Novelists, for example, can have a strongly theatrical relationship with their audience–Dickens is the classic example.
Disentangling the theatrical and the literary aspects of the fame of a writer can take a long time. For Shakespeare, it took two centuries. For Dickens, it took about 50 years, during which he was condescended to as “a great entertainer.” and nothing more.
The rock group is theatrical. In my previous post, I used the names of several rock groups. But the literary genius is Mick Jagger, or Paul McCartney, or John Lennon.
1) Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley …
2) The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, the Kinks …
3) Big Country
This category is for notes about rock and roll as a literary form. I’m using the term ‘rock and roll’ because it’s out of date for rock music in general.
